Linear Digressions is a podcast about machine learning and data science. Machine learning is being used to solve a ton of interesting problems, and to accomplish goals that were out of reach even a few short years ago.

Ever feel like you could randomly assemble words from a certain vocabulary and make semi-coherent Kanye West lyrics? Or technical documentation, imitations of local newscasters, your politically outspoken uncle, etc.? Wonder no more, there's a way to do this exact type of thing: it's called a Markov Chain, and probably the most powerful way to generate made-up data that you can then use for fun and profit. The idea behind a Markov Chain is that you probabilistically generate a sequence of steps, numbers, words, etc. where each next step/number/word depends only on the previous one, which makes it fast and efficient to computationally generate. Usually Markov Chains are used for serious academic uses, but this ain't one of them: here they're used to randomly generate rap lyrics based on Kanye West lyrics.